Tag Archives: improving in ballet

Getting the Point: How to Point Your Feet

07 Monday Aug 2017

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Dancer Allison Bartella’s pointed foot.

Ballet is about lines of the body. A pointed foot completes the line of the leg and can give the illusion of a longer, higher leg line. A beautifully pointed arched foot is also the quintessential hallmark of an accomplished ballet dancer. Pointed feet don’t just look better, they also help you dance better. If your foot isn’t reaching, your leg will have no energy, which makes it a lot harder to hold your leg up. Pointing your feet also helps you jump higher. But what is the best way to point your feet? Can your point improve? Is it possible to point your feet in the wrong way? Pointing in the wrong way can distort the line of the leg, or worse, cause damage to the tendons in your ankles. Let’s explore how to do it correctly.

Sit on the floor and put your legs together out in front of you. Sit up tall–use your hands on the floor to help support you. (Might as well practice sitting up tall every chance you get!) Reach your toes long away from you, lengthening the top of your ankles. The goal is to reach your feet long on all sides, like this

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Allison Bartella points foot

If you have high arches and pointing comes naturally to you, great. If your feet barely look different between when you point them and when you flex them, don’t despair. It may take some time, and we can discuss some things to do to help. First, a couple of no-no’s.

1. No sickling – Sickling is when the inner edge of your foot bends inwards. Like this:

Allison Bartella demonstrates a sickled foot for the camera.

See that sickle shape on the inner edge of  Allison’s foot? It’s not only an unnatractive line to the foot and leg, it can create alignment issues, cause injuries and other difficulties. Stephanie’s foot, pictured here:

Dancer Stephanie Shellooe’s pointed foot.

does the opposite of sickling – her foot naturally pushes forward at the ankle, creating a lovely line. Some people call this “winging”. Not everyone has this flexibility in their ankles and I’m not advocating that you aspire to point your feet like Stephanie’s. However, if you have a tendency to sickle, it may help to imagine the front of your ankle yearning forward as you lengthen your toes. I don’t want you to sacrifice lengthened toes to get this shape though, ok? That’s not the goal.  Ideally, you want your foot evenly reaching on all sides for the optimum health of your feet and ankles. After all, they are your foundation, and will affect the alignment of your whole body.

2. No scrunching your toes. Lengthen them out. If your toes naturally bend when you point, this is something to work on at home. With Allison’s foot, (even through her shoe!) you can see her big toe is very straight between her bunion and the tip of her toe. The joint of her big toe reaches long. Instead of bending. Isn’t that cool?

I’ll tell you my story because this is one of the most common dancer injuries, and like many dance injuries, it is avoidable. When I was growing up, my big toe scrunched when I pointed my feet. By the time I was in my teens, pointing my feet made an audible crunching noise in the back of my ankle. It wasn’t painful, it just seemed like one of those ‘weird dancer things’.

A few years ago between ballet, going running and wearing three inch heels to my day job, my ankles started bothering me. The backs of my ankles were painful and swelling and despite icing my feet in ice baths after class, they got worse. Finally, I asked Google.

I found a terrific website called The Ballet Blog, written by a physiotherapist for dancers who is based in Australia. Lisa’s article about FHL tendinopahy was exactly what I needed. I took her advice, and went to a doctor who confirmed the diagnosis with an MRI. Luckily, I was able to get physical therapy at Harkness Center for Dance. (They are great if you ever need a physical therapist.)

What had happened to my foot was the Flexor Hallucis Longus (FHL) tendon, which runs from the big toe under the foot and up through the back of the ankle, had gotten overused over time because of my bending my big toe, causing the tendon to thicken. As it passed through a narrow channel at the back of my ankle, it created so much friction you could hear it! Over many years, the thickened tendon began to cause pain and swelling.

If your big toe bends when you point your feet, remember it took many years for my foot to start having difficulties. But you can also un-learn this bad habit just like I did. You just have to stop squeezing your toes and instead, imagine your feet lengthening. It may take a little concentration. It helped me to use my hands to lengthen my toes as I pointed my foot. Your feet will begin to understand as you mold them with your hands. It is really more challenging for your brain. As you relearn, there are lots of intrinsic little muscles in your feet and ankles that can help do the work of pointing the foot, and Lisa’s video talks more about that. 

How can you improve your point?

As you work on your foot and your point, please be kind to your yourself and to your feet. This isn’t chinese foot binding, it’s the lines of your body and your body is beautiful. I’ve shown pictures of a couple of dancers who have amazing feet so we can all enjoy them, but not because I’m saying if you don’t look like them you are doing it wrong. If energy is going out your feet, then my dear, you are doing it absolutely right. You don’t need perfectly arched feet to dance ballet. You just need need the joy and the desire to dance. That is all ballet or any other dance form requires of you – no matter what anyone tells you. If your feet sickle naturally and it causes problems for you, it may be something you can talk to your doctor or physical therapist about. But gently working with your feet and doing some of these exercises can stregthen and stretch them a lot.

1. Massage the bottoms of your feet with balls can help release tension there. Stepping on the balls with them under your arches can also be helpful releasing the feet.

2. Using your hands to point your feet, massage and manipulate your feet can help release tension along all sides of your foot.

3. My teacher growing up told us to pick up marbles or pencils with our toes to develop the little muscles in our toes and arches.

4. She also told us to do ‘doming’ with our feet. Sit in a chair and put your feet flat on the floor and press down with your toes and lift your arches up as if making a little mouse passageway under your feet.

5. Another exercise is to lift each toe one at a time starting with your big toe until they are all up, then place them down again one at a time starting with your pinky toe, like you are playing the piano with your toes. Or alternate lifting your big toe and putting it down and then lift the other four toes and put them down.

6. Our teacher also had us press the top of our foot on the floor to stretch the front of the ankle joint. Stand and bend your left leg so that you can place the top of the right foot on the floor — the area above your toe knuckles around your metatarsals.  Straighten your left leg and push the top of your foot against the floor with the top of your foot to open your front ankle joint. Don’t just bend your toes down, the idea is to use the top of the foot to help open the front of your ankle joint. If you already have very flexible feet, this one my not be for you. As with all stretches, respect and listen to your body. 

7.  If you get cramps from pointing your feet, be sure to eat a lot of bananas and bend your toes back to stretch your arches. As your feet get stronger, they will cramp less.

8.  Finally, during class, imagine the tops of your ankles opening as you reach your toes long as if you are pushing something away with the top of your pointed foot.

I hope these suggestions and ideas help you work with your feet. Your energy should radiate out your feet reaching them very long. If you are doing that and your toes are reaching long and your ankles are not sickling, you are doing the right thing, no matter how you may judge them, and that really is the whole point.

~ Sarah

Empowerment – Three Small Ways to Build Strength for Ballet

20 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in Exercises to build strength in ballet, how to balance in ballet, How to improve at ballet, Uncategorized

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Have you seen the Wonder Woman movie yet? What are you waiting for? Not only is it a great action film, terrific story, with great touches of humor, but it is overwhelmingly gratifying to watch a powerful, feminine character triumphing. It left me feeling stronger than I’ve felt in a very long time. 

You need to be strong to dance ballet as well as to save the world. Last month I talked about ankle strength, but core strength is also key to ballet. I’m not just talking about engaging deep abdominals, but core hip and back strength as well. 

One thing that makes Diana Prince a great superhero is how she discovers her powers in the moment, reflexively. Strength in ballet is like that too. It is strong without hardness, or gritting your teeth or holding your breath. It’s a solid standing leg when doing a degage or develope or engaging your core in a pirouette. 

There are small ways to improve strength that can make a big difference to your dancing. In rebuilding my strength from being sick for two months, I came across this quote by Dali Lama that seems apt especially this summer: “If you are feeling like small things don’t make much of a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” Here then are three small ways to condition your body to become stronger. 

1. One minute plank. We do planks at my gym, Mark Fisher Fitness. Planks work your arms, shoulders, legs, butt, and abdominals. My goal this month is to start each day with a one minute plank. I did my plank today! How to do a plank: 

  •  Spread and flatten your hands on the floor underneath your shoulders.  If you feel pain in your wrists, put your elbows on the floor under your shoulders instead.
  • Stretch your legs back so that your body is in a line from your head to your heels and come onto the balls of your feet and press your one minute timer. 
  • Press your heels back, Lift your hips and squeeze your butt, tuck your hips under, and hollow your belly into your spine. Imagine you are wearing a belt and you are pointing your belt buckle towards your chin. Open your chest and widen across your collar bones. Breathe! Squeeze your butt and hollow your belly again! 

2. Stand on one foot. Since nearly everything in ballet is done on one leg, practicing standing on one leg with good pelvic alignment (like I learned in physical therapy) can help prepare and strengthen your hips and legs and core, and will improve your balance. In doing this you may notice one leg is more wobbly (weaker) than the other. Doing this every day will help even that out. The beauty of it is you can do it while brushing your teeth or doing the dishes or any time you are standing and waiting!

  • Stand with your feet parallel. Check that your pelvis isn’t tucked under or tilted back. Zip up your lower abdomen, stand up tall and transfer your weight to one foot.
  • Make sure your hips are level right and left as well as front to back. I’m working towards three minutes on each leg. 
  • Try it with your eyes closed which makes balancing a lot harder. 

3. Baby Cobra  If you’ve been to a yoga class, you may know this one already. It’s an amazing way to strengthen your back and abdominals. Yes, a strong back will also help your pirouettes. 

  • Lie on your stomach with your legs together, turned parallel, so that you feel your toenails on the floor and stretch your legs back behind you. 
  • Lift and hollow your lower belly away from the floor. Keep that abdominal support, so that you bend in your upper, not lower back as you do this. 
  • Put your hands on the floor next to your ribcage and peel your shoulders and chest up off the floor. 
  • Drop your chin to keep your head in line with your spine and lengthen out the top of your head and out your legs and feet. 
  • Come down and rest and try it again. The second time after you come up, take your hands off the floor and hold the position using the muscles in your belly and upper back. 

    By strengthening your abs, hips and back, you create an intrinsic strength that will help you balance, work better on one leg, hold your alignment, and be more efficient when you move. Take that out into your daily life and pay attention to how you hold your body. How you sit, stand, walk, cross or uncross your legs, (keep them uncrossed!) and on which shoulder you hold your bag (alternate!) makes a big difference when you get into the studio. Your body will get stronger by consistent positive actions and exercises even if they seem small, making you stronger and more capable to do all that is required of you in ballet and in the world. 

    ~Sarah

    Join me for ballet class! This Saturday, August 5th, 2017 ONLY, class will be held from 1-2:30 in the front studio, not 12-1:30 because of a leak in the back studio. Class donations start st $10 on Saturdays–half the price of a regular ballet class!!  I also teach Tuesday 7-8pm. $10 suggested donation. We are located at 380 Broadway, 5th floor. See you there! 

    Strengthening Ankles and Calves

    17 Saturday Jun 2017

    Posted by in How to improve at ballet, How to Strengthen Ankles, Stretches for Calves and Ankles, Uncategorized

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    Relevé means ‘to raise’. Photo © Sarah Schatz.

    Weak ankles can be a problem for a lot of dancers, and particularly if you have very flexible feet, your ankles may lack stability. Ankle strength can help your balance, can help prevent injuries, and helps dancers enormously with take off and landing jumps and turns.

    If you have weak ankles you may unconsciously hold yourself back because your foundation feels unsteady. I found this to be true of myself when I was recovering from an ankle injury. If my ankles felt wobbly, I didn’t feel confident going for multiple turns or relevés on one leg or even jumps sometimes. Maybe you’ve noticed for yourself that you hold back or dance tentatively or even overcompensate by tensing your shoulders or biting your lips. If you are insecure physically, it can affect you psychologically. The good news is, strengthening your ankles may help you become a better dancer overall.

    Here are some excercises to strengthen your ankles and calves. (Disclaimer – I am not a doctor or a physical therapist, I am a dancer and teacher. If you feel pain doing these exercises besides just muscle soreness, do less, go easy, or if you are injured, seek the advice of a professional.)

    1. Ankle Raises or Elevés  Hold on to a barre or a wall (or the kitchen counter) and put your feet together with the inside edges of your feet touching. Keeping your legs straight, press the balls of your feet down as you lift your heels off the floor as high as they will go (this is called an elevé-like an elevator) Then lower your heels evenly back down to the floor. Be sure to keep your feet and heels and legs together (if you can) as you do this. Think of your weight going right down between your first toe and second toes. This can help keep your ankles in alignment. Start with ten slow elevés. Going slowly and minfully is far more challenging than speeding.

    2. Plié Over Lifted Arches  Rise to the balls of your feet and keeping your legs together, bend your knees in a shallow demi plié. As you bend your knees, keep the arches of your feet lifted and your heels extending as high as they will go. Keep your ankles and knees together as you straighten your legs. Be sure your toes are relaxing on the floor. Bend and straighten ten times.

    Sarah Doudna

    Lift your heels as high as they will go. Don’t worry, your toes won’t let your ankle go too far – they are like a natural kickstand! Photo © Sarah Shatz.

    3. Heel Drop Bend your knees just like you did in the previous exercise but instead of straightening your legs, stay in that bent knee position, and lower your heels slowly and smoothly to the floor. Then lift your heels back up again as high as they will go with the same slow evenness. Try to control the movement of your heels as much as you can and move them smoothly without jerking. This exercise strengthens muscles particularly useful in petite allegro and other small fast footwork. Lower and lift your heels ten times.

    4. “Walking” in Place  Rise to the balls of your feet then lower your left heel, bending the right leg and coming the the ball of the right foot with your heel lifted as high as it will go. Rise back to the balls of both feet and reverse, this time lowering the right heel and bending the left leg. Continue to rise and lower one heel – ‘walking’ back and forth. This can a nice warm up for your feet. Be sure your heels ‘kiss’ as they pass – don’t let them separate out to the sides.

    Sarah Doudna

    To help align your ankles, keep your weight centered down right between your first and second toes. Photo © Sarah Shatz.

    5. Plie Releves  A relevé (which means ‘raised’) is like an eleve, but instead of with straight legs, releves start and end with a demi plie, but  it is also a rise up onto the balls of the feet or to the pointes of point shoes. Relevés are like the push-ups of ballet. They strengthen your legs, particularly your calves and ankles.

    To do a releve, demi plié. Begin to straighten your legs, and as you do, press the balls of your feet down and lift your heels off the floor, until your legs are completely straight and your heels are lifted as high as they will go. Then lower your heels to the ground as you demi plié. Relevés are done in all positions of the feet and on two feet or one foot. After doing some releves with your feet parallel, open your toes to first position and  repeat the releves in first position.

    Reminders:

    • Relax your toes and spread them  wide on the ground as you rise to the balls of your feet.
    • Make sure your weight is centered in between your first and second toes. If your weight is more in your pinky toes, you may be sickling your ankles. Line up your bones.
    • Remember that your turn out comes from your hips. In first position be sure to rotate your inner thighs forward and imagine your legs lengthing down out of your hips. At the same time, imagine your heels coming forward as your heels lift.
    • Alignment is key. Remember to lengthen your lower back towards the floor as you lift your lower belly in and up. Relax your front ribs and imagine a string pulling you up from the back of your head. Your upper body should stay lifted and not move around as your legs plié and relevé.
    • It may help to imagine you have a unicorn horn coming out of your forehead and imagine your energy going forward and up. This helps prevent your ribs from splaying and your weight from going backwards.
    • Be sure you are lifting your heels as high as they will go. Extend your ankles fully.
    • Relevés are like slow motion jumps, which also start and end in plié and have straight legs and fully extended ankles at the top of the movement. Releves are great preparation and training for jumps.

    Doing these exercises and doing relevés at the barre on two feet and one foot will improve your strength and stability for when you move to center floor.

    Now that you have worked them out, stretch your upper calves (gastrocnemius) and achilles – the tendon at the back of your ankle. Bring your feet parallel and slide you right foot back a foot or two and bend the front knee. Push into the wall or barre (or kitchen counter) to increase the stretch.

    Sarah Doudna

    Calf stretch – keep your legs parallel and keep your back heel on the floor. Photo © Sarah Shatz.

    Then bring your back foot in a little bit and bend the back foot as well to stretch the lower portion of your calf (soleus) and achilles. You can also get a nice stretch in you calves by lowering your heels off a stair step.

    Sarah Doudna

    Stretch for achilles and lower calf. Sometimes I need to adjust my stance to feel a stretch or even stick my hip out a bit. Photo © Sarah Shatz.

    Any question? Just ask in the comments below and let me know if any of this helps you over time. Stronger ankles makes stronger dancers. See you in class!

    ~Sarah

    Want to join us? Check out our schedule at http://www.liberatedmovement.com – all classes for only ten dollars!



    Starting Where You Are

    29 Monday May 2017

    Posted by in Accepting yourself, Believe you can dance, How to get better, Start where you are

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    Ballet dancers at Liberated Movement’s Benefit Bash on April 22nd. Dancers from left to right: Brendan, Arielle, Regina, Calvin, Kayla, Ilya, Diondra, and Claire (behind Diondra).

    April was an insanely busy month nailing down details for Liberated Movement’s Fundraiser, our Diversity in Dance Benefit-Bash. It went very well, and we had a great turn out (no pun intended). The three choreographed dances were very well received (Contemporary, Ballet and Hip Hop), they loved our unique Moving Statues piece that welcomed guests into the beautiful space. The swing lesson was a big hit as was the surprise flash mob at the end. Talk about diversity in dance! I was so proud of our dancers. We had a great crowd made up of new and old friends. It was an incredibly fun night.

    In the aftermath of the weeks of preparation, late nights sending emails after working my day job communicating with silent auction donors, dancers, attendees, and my phenomenal fellow organizers, plus teaching and rehearsing, it finally caught up to me and I got really sick.

    While I’ve been recuperating, I’ve been reflecting on getting better – how does one actually get better – at anything? Finally turning a corner towards getting better required me to fully accept the severity of my illness, take everything off my calendar, and put in some serious hours of sleeping. Perhaps getting better at anything requires that deep level of accepting where you are first. A full acknowledgment of your limitations without shame or guilt or judgement but with the full illumination of daylight and the acceptance and welcoming of a friend. “This is truly my turnout for good or bad,” without self incrimination, and without cheating or gripping. From this honest place, your improvement may be faster because you are starting where you truly are.

    Inspiring Liberated Movement

    02 Friday Oct 2015

    Posted by in Animal Crawling, Better body control, Crawling, Cross training for ballet, Fascia, How to improve at ballet, Lisa Howell, Mark Fisher Fitness, Mike Fitch, Moving from your core, Perfect Form Physiotherapy, The Ballet Blog, The Ballet Blog Teacher Training, Tim Anderson Crawling, Uncategorized

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    I love to teach. I get inspired by my student’s enthusiasm and by watching dancers improve and blossom. I also love to learn anything I can to help my dancers (and myself!) dance better. This past month I have had two remarkable learning experiences that were totally different and yet weirdly similar. The first was a ballet teacher training and the second was a gym I joined. Hard to believe these two would have anything in common!

    The ballet teacher training was taught by Lisa Howell, author of The Ballet Blog, a wonderful online resource. Lisa is a Physiotherapist who works with dancers in Australia. I found Lisa’s blog last year when googling symptoms of a foot injury. Her online explanation of what was going on with my ankle was eye-opening. Not only was the diagnosis correct and confirmed by a visit to a surgeon specializing in dancers’ injuries such as mine, I was also lucky to avoid surgery partly through learning about feet and ankles through Lisa’s books as well as from physical therapy. Lisa’s goal is to teach teachers how to train dancers so that common injuries can be avoided. She helps dancers overcome specific physical limitations and challenges. She also helps dancers avoid injury altogether through special training and techniques. I urge you to check out her blog and website and videos and books. She’s a wonderful resource.

    One of the techniques she advocates is Fascial mobilization. A lot of us sit all day and then expect to be able to get up and move meanwhile all our muscles have gotten all stuck and stiff. Fascial mobilization involves mobilizing the connective tissue between muscle groups. Lisa explains it far better than I can in this video (plus she has a really great accent!). Check out her YouTube video. I’ve been incorporating some of these exercises into the beginning of ballet classes and I’ve noticed a marked improvement in everyone’s arabesques!

    • Try this: Pretend you are in a glass box and the walls are just out of reach. Try to touch every surface one at a time–top, bottom, sides, front and back, and every corner of the box by stretching your arms, twisting, bending, and when you think you’ve stretched to your limit, go three more millimeters. 

    Another thing Lisa advocates is crawling. (Yes, on the floor!) Apparently a lot of research has been done in the last few years showing the importance of crawling for babies’ development, but also how crawling can be helpful for adults–it can retrain muscles, improve strength and coordination and make use of the body’s natural ‘cross-body slings’ that are part of the fascia. Lisa just wrote this blog about it. Check it out here.

    • Try this: Get on your hands and knees. Lift your right hand and left knee and move them forward and place them down at the same time. Now switch and use the left hand and right knee. You may find that developing grace in the seemingly simple act of crawling can be challenging. Keep your head up and slide your feet along the floor as you crawl. You can make it harder for yourself by going backwards or sideways, varying your speed, or lifting your knees one inch off the ground and crawling on the balls of your feet.

    I was very much surprised then when I joined a gym called Mark Fisher Fitness and the first thing they had us do was crawling! I was also thrilled. It was exactly what Lisa Howell had taught! While Lisa told us to look up Mike Fitch and his animal crawling sequence, Mark Fisher Fitness is strongly based on the Original Strength principles taught by Tim Anderson. Both trainers seem to be teaching similar principles all designed to help body builders gain strength, and body control. Seems like dancers can probably learn from these techniques as well.  Here is one of Tim’s articles about crawling. I’ve also noticed that doing the weight lifting and training this month has definitely improved my dancing. It’s helped my core in particular. Cross training is great–I’ve found canoe paddling/kayaking, biking, and particularly yoga very helpful. Really anything else you do with your body can help you gain better awareness and control and can improve your body for ballet. Cross training has helped me overcome stumbling blocks – things I’m struggling with in ballet. After strengthening another area of my body through another discipline, I come back to dance and find my front developé is easier or I can get my arabesque higher. Both of these techniques–the fascial mobilization and crawling–are both aimed at restoring the body to its natural movement patterns that can be lost due to injury, stress, and sitting for long periods of time.

    Lisa told us about one of the teenage girls she worked with who had overcome some specific physical limitations. She said to Lisa “I can find the right people and ask the right questions, nothing is impossible!”  I hope I can inspire dancers to think the same way–that nothing is impossible. Anyway, if you’ve been wondering why we’ve been crawling or stretching at the start of class, now you know what is behind it. I hope learning these techniques will make you a stronger, more capable dancer, able to dance with less pain, fewer injuries and a freedom that is truly liberated movement.

    ~Sarah

     

    Come dance with me–at Liberated Movement–every Tuesday night 7-8pm. And Saturdays 12-1:30. http://www.liberatedmovement.com. Suggested donation is just $10, half what other classes cost in the city. 380 Broadway, buzzer #5. See you there!